A SCOTTISH woman jailed for drug smuggling in Peru is to appear in court to ask judge to free her and allow her to fly home.
Melissa Reid, who was jailed alongside Irish woman Michaella McCollum in 2013, will make an appearance in private at a makeshift courtroom at Sarita Colonia Prison today.
Her defence team will argue that she should be allowed to return to Britain top serve the rest of her sentence under because of a law designed to reduce Peru's prison population which is applicable to most first-time foreign offenders sentenced to less than seven years in jail.
The 22-year-old will ask to be allowed home to her family in Scotland less than a month after Ms McCollum was released on bail.
While McCollum, 23, is facing an uncertain future in the capital Lima, Reid is bidding for effective expulsion from the south American country.
The hearing to decide the Scottish woman;s request will take place at 8pm UK time on Tuesday.
Reid has already won the backing of her prison governor for the move, which highlights the two different approaches both women have taken to secure their freedom.
McCollum applied to leave prison and remain in Peru to then pursue a return to Northern Ireland. Meanwhile, Reid is applying to return directly to Scotland.
The initiative, which foreign convicts can apply for once they have served a third of their jail term, has been branded an expulsion programme although it is officially called a 'special country departure benefit.'
Under the terms of the law, beneficiaries have to secure the permission of their prison director before applying to the judge in charge of their case, thought to be the original sentencing judge Pedro Miguel Puente Bardales where Melissa is concerned.
In most cases successful applicants also have to prove payment of the compensation they were ordered to pay as part of their sentence, 10,000 Peruvian soles or around £2,100 .
A court source in Callao, the judicial district overseeing Reid's case, said: "A special country departure benefit hearing for foreigners has been programmed for Melissa Reid for April 26 at 2pm in Sarita Colonia Jail."
The head of the Peruvian prison service also said he thought it was time the two British women were sent home.
Julio Magan called on the country's courts to deal with their cases swiftly to help combat prison overcrowding.
He said: "The conduct of these two girls was punishable under our criminal code but I am for short sentences for people like them who are not heads of drugs gangs.
"They are just the people who are paid to transport the bags. They have been used and I do not think they will reoffend.
"I think they have been punished enough. They have had good conduct in prison, doing study and work, and their reports are good.'
McCollum, from Dungannon, Co Tyrone, and Reid, of Lenzie, Dunbartonshire, were sentenced to six years and eight months behind bars on December 17 2013 after admitting trying to smuggle more than 11 kilos of cocaine out of the country.
They were arrested at Lima's Jorge Chavez Airport on August 6 that year with more than 11 kilos of cocaine in their suitcases.
They protested their innocence for weeks before confessing to trying to smuggle the drugs out of the country on an Air Europe flight to Majorca via Madrid.
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